What if some of the risk for anxiety and depression in children is not only due to the genes they inherit, but also their parents’ genetic dispositions and how these influence the home environment?
In a new study of more than 9,300 Norwegian families, researchers at the University of Oslo’s Department of Psychology found that children’s mental health is linked to both their own genetic disposition and that of their parents – perhaps because parents’ genetic vulnerabilities can also shape the home environment in which a child grows up.
transfer across generations
The researchers stressed that the effects are small, but the findings provide new knowledge about how psychological vulnerabilities can be transmitted across generations.
We’ve long known that parents matter a lot to children’s mental health. What’s new in our study is that we can show this using genetic data from the mother, father and child at the same time.”
Razieh Chegeni, Promenta Research Center
She is the lead author of the study, published in Nature Mental Health. Researchers analyzed genetic data from 9,314 Norwegian families participating in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MOBA). The aim was to examine how children’s mental health is related to both their own genetic disposition and that of their parents.
Parents’ genes influence home environment
“The most interesting finding is that anxiety and depression symptoms in children do not seem to be solely linked to their genetic disposition. The parents’ genetic profile also plays a role,” explains Chegeni.
She adds, parents’ genetic predisposition can influence how their children are functioning, how they regulate emotions and how everyday life is run at home. Thus, the genetic weaknesses of the parents may also influence the environment in which the child is raised. According to Chegeni, these are called indirect genetic effects.
Studies thus show that children’s mental health is shaped by both their own genes and their parents’ genetic profiles, which in turn influences the home environment.
Conversations change over time
However, it did not look the same at every age. Some genetic factors were more important in childhood, while others became more pronounced during adolescence. The associations were stronger at age 14 than at age 8, suggesting that the influence of genes and home environment varies from childhood to adolescence.
On the parental side, mother’s genetic susceptibility to smoking and father’s genetic predisposition to psychological well-being emerged in several models. Chegeni emphasizes that these factors alone do not explain children’s mental health, but that such genetic profiles may point to traits and vulnerabilities that also affect the family around the child.
At the same time, researchers are clear that it is not a tool to predict mental health in individual children. Even the best models explained only 2.7 percent of the variation in depressive symptoms and 1.2 percent of the variation in anxiety.
“Genes are not destiny. Our findings cannot be used to predict mental health in individual children, but they can help us better understand how risk is transmitted across generations”, concluded Chegeni.
